The key function of government essay

The same is true of clean air, the postal service, and the interstate highway system. Technology helps them not only to participate in global conversations that affect us all but also to amplify the voices of those who have been marginalized or altogether missing from such conversations.

Externalities affect those who are not direct participants or beneficiaries in the activity, and they may be negative or positive. Similarly, Clay Shirky begins his TEDTalk with a discussion of how cameras on phones were used to combat voter suppression in the presidential election in the U.

A number of TED speakers explicitly examine the ways that ICTs give individual citizens the ability to document governmental abuses they witness and to upload this information to the Internet for a global audience.

They may also be psychological or aesthetic. The state, as stated above, though universal yet it is a limited agency. For example, Brown recounts how citizens in Zimbabwe used the cameras on their phones at polling places in order to discourage the Mugabe regime from engaging in electoral fraud.

Some speakers focus primarily on how anti-authoritarian protesters use technology to convene and organize supporters, while others expose how authoritarian governments use technology to manipulate and control individuals and groups.

There is now hardly a phase of life in which the state does not participate either as a Tenderer of services, as an arbiter, or as a controller. Sure, military security can be outsourced.

The welfare state is now a popular ideal. What happens in one part of the world can very quickly affect everyone, everywhere. For the maintenance of order, its primary task, the state performs a number of subsidiary functions like that of regulating and coordinating the work of other associations, defining the rights and obligations of citizenship, establishing and controlling means of communication and transportation, establishing units and standards of computation, measurement value etc.

On the one hand, there are thinkers like anarchists, communists, syndic lists who question the very existence of the state and advocate a stateless society. On the other hand, there are the absolute thinkers like idealists who regard the state omnipotent and entrust to it every action pertaining to human life.

Gordon Brown implicitly alludes to the importance of global citizenship when he states that we need a global ethic of fairness and responsibility to inform global problem-solving. The state has limits to what it can do.

Some of the important functions of a state are as follows: Thus, ICTs can empower citizens by giving them tools that can help keep their governments accountable. Wealthy individuals and governments could hire private mercenaries.

In the United States, economic policy leaves most decisions to the private markets where individual choice, competition and exchange are presumed to lead to a growing economy. It is limited by the fear of resistance.

Please enable iFrames to view this content or visit Functions of Government. While not all governments do this successfully, it is a function assumed in modern democracies. The trend towards expansion of governmental functions is likely to continue.

Those suffering from pollution do not share in the profits the polluting factory earns by its activity. It is limited by the means at its disposal. ICTs have extended human interaction and increased our interconnectedness, making it possible for geographically dispersed people not only to share information at an ever-faster rate but also to organize and to take action in response to events occurring in places far from where they are physically situated.

This "democratization of media" allows individuals to create massive amounts of information in a variety of formats and to distribute it almost instantly to a potentially global audience.

ICTs and global citizenship While there are no easy answers to the global political questions raised by the proliferation of ICTs, there are relatively new approaches to the questions that look promising, including the emergence of individuals who see themselves as global citizens — people who participate in a global civil society that transcends national boundaries.

They highlight the ways that ICTs have opened up new forms of communication and activism as well as how the much-hailed revolutionary power of ICTs can and has been co-opted by oppressive regimes to reassert their control.

Obviously, these are negative externalities.

Governments tax wealthier citizens and transfer income and services to certain categories of individuals who are thought to need them. If the exploitation of natural resources is left in the hands of private individuals, then they will seek their own gain at the cost of communal gain.

Education is an example of a positive externality when members of society other than students benefit from a more educated population. Where once individual extremists might have felt isolated and alone, disconnected from like-minded people and thus unable to act in concert with others to pursue their agendas, ICTs allow them to connect with other extremists and to form communities around their ideas, narratives, and symbols.

The state can better uphold the interest of the whole and the interest of the future as against the competitive interests. Accordingly, our problem is not to reduce the functions of the state or abolish it but to develop more adequate scientific knowledge and techniques for the efficient exercise of these powers in the public interest.

Begin this TED Study with a fascinating read that gives context and clarity to the material. According to him, the very nature of the state sets a limitation on the functions of the state. National security is a good example. Thirdly, the state should not interfere with custom and fashion directly.

Provide Collective Public Goods Public goods are resources that governments play a crucial role in providing.Functions of Government In trying to "form a more perfect Union," the Framers of the Constitution spelled out several key functions government must perform. This activity tests your knowledge about the functions of government.

What is Government? - Definition, Role & Functions. The government fulfills this function in many different ways, including monitoring the economy, businesses, and banks; maintaining the. In between these two extreme types of thinking there are the individualists who hold that Government is the best which governs the least.

Thus, there is no unanimity among the political thinkers as to what the state should do. And it is limited by the existence of other associations in society whose function ii cannot perform or undertake.

At one moment or another you've must asked yourself what is government and what role does it play in our lives. In its simplest form, a government determines the way in which a country, state, county, township, city, college, or village is run.

Essays Related to Role of Government. /5(9). THE ROLE OF GOVERNMENT IN EDUCATION. From Milton Friedman (/), Capitalism and Freedom (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press); earlier version () in Robert A. Solo proposed arrangements but also the additional problems raised by the administration of the schools as a governmental function.

Read › TED Studies › Government and politics › Introductory essay Written by the educators who created Cyber-Influence and Power, a brief look at the key facts, tough questions and big ideas in their field.